“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat,” said Malcolm S. Forbes, former publisher of Forbes magazine.
These words perfectly capture the Minooka Indians football season for Week 6.
After a flawless 5-0 start to their 2024 season, they dropped their first to Yorkville 21-7. This game, while a setback, serves as an important reminder that you can never truly be invincible.
Going into the game Yorkville hosted a 2-3 record; they had to win, and give everything they had in the tank to keep their playoff hopes alive.
“We knew they were gonna play like an animal backed into a corner and that’s exactly what they did,” senior offensive tackle Jake Simpson said.
Minooka’s run defense had been solid through the first five games. They had yet to face a good passing team with good receivers. Minooka’s change in defense, to focus on passing more, proved to be detrimental, allowing Yorkville to get the majority of their yards running the ball. This was uncharacteristic of their first five games, and the program’s history.
“I think we really focused on their passing game. Not only because their run game was not looking good, but also because they had a star receiver,” junior linebacker Elliot Dahlberg said.
Minooka got the first points of the game with a run by senior running back, Paris Spears.
Yorkville responded shortly after with another touchdown tying the game at 7.
It was a constant back and forth. Right before half, the Indians got well into junior kicker Sean Sample’s field goal range.
On the last play of the drive, junior quarterback Zane Caves was scrambling, and threw an interception ending the drive keeping it tied at half.
The Indians defense was solid in the third managing to shut down Yorkville’s offense, keeping it tied at 7 all the way until the fourth, where Yorkville got another rushing touchdown moving the score to 14-7.
“I believe the touchdown kind of drew us apart and got the offensive morale down,” Dahlberg said, “We needed to understand that we weren’t out of the game and it was still only a one score game.”
Looking for a response to the defect, the offense could not provide just yet, with a quick three and out being forced to punt the ball away and send back out the defense.
“We shot ourselves in the foot when we needed to score and that cost us the game,” Simpson said.
With morale down the Indians faced their first major hill to climb of the season. The defense went back out and on the first play let up another touchdown with 6 minutes left. The game was looking further and further away for the Indians. Now down by 2 scores, the offense could not get anything going.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t meet our other focus which was to put points on the board, which is a big reason why we didn’t have the game we wanted to have,” Simpson said.
The Foxes would hold the Indians out at 21-7 sealing the game and keeping Yorkville’s playoff hope alive.
“We just didn’t execute properly, I think we needed to attack practice in a little bit more of a serious manner than what we did,” head coach Matt Harding said.
With a dominant, bounce back win against Plainfield North, 23-7, the team is hopeful in an amazing season still.
“I think the loss will wake us up and we need people to step up as leaders and become a stronger team together as a unit,” Dahlberg said.
The Indians season is hopefully far from over with playoffs officially clinched. This loss will just be another lesson in the long list of the lessons the boys have learned this season.
“I think what the team learned is that we need to bring it every day, you know we need to attack it. We don’t have many days of practice before our actual game,” Harding said, “There is a lot of plays that we need to go over and be able to stop, so you know offensively and defensively we gotta be on top of our game throughout the week so that way we are prepared on Friday.”
Matthew Persha is a member of the Minooka varsity football team.
